


Territorial

by PengyChan



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: False Identity, M/M, Possessive Behavior, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-09-07 00:10:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8775337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PengyChan/pseuds/PengyChan
Summary: Bill Cipher doesn’t take it kindly when somebody messes with his stuff.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nelja](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nelja/gifts).



> I wrote this a little while back as Nelja’s commission, for her donation to the GF charity drive. She requested "something pre-betrayal about some dream creature attacking Ford, Bill getting possessive and destroying it, and Ford getting even more smitten”. Just figured I may as well post it here. 
> 
> (Yep, still BillFord trash.)

There were times when the transition from awareness to dream - and therefore, from reality to Mindscape - was so smooth Ford didn’t notice the difference for a few moments. He would open his eyes, see his bedroom’s ceiling, and could have very easily believed he had awakened from a slumber rather than having just slipped into it.

However, there would be small details to give the illusion away. One of said details was usually Bill. Generally, if Ford awoke to find him eye down on his chest, clinging to his torso with eight arms, it was a pretty good indication of the fact he was actually asleep.

“Bill?”

“Hiya, Sixer,” Bill muttered, not moving an inch. A pair of arms stretched up to lace themselves around his neck. “Have I ever mentioned I like how fuzzy you are?”

A smile curled Ford’s lips, and he reached to put a hand on Bill’s back. “Several times,” he said, letting his head back down on the pillow. He let his thumb brush across Bill’s surface, which was pleasantly smooth - more than any earthly material Ford had ever touched, that was for sure. “But I do prefer the way you feel.”

Bill laughed. “Well, now _that_ was smooth. Pun intended,” he said, and Ford felt several arms tightening their grip around him for a moment before Bill lifted himself up on his elbows - just two of them - and looked at him, eye half-lidded. “What a charmer.”

Him, a charmer? The concept was so ridiculous Ford had to laugh, trying to ignore the heat on his face. His ears were probably bright pink already; he was terrible at hiding his embarrassment, and blushed terribly quickly whenever Bill was involved. Then again, not much would have changed even if he had the best poker face known to mankind: there was nothing - nothing - he could possibly hide from Bill. He was the All Seeing Eye. He was his Muse, and Ford was his… his… just _his._

_From now until the end of time._

“Shame you won’t last for long, huh?”

Bill’s comment was unexpected and felt like a blow, despite - or maybe because of - how off-handed it sounded. Like he was just commenting on the weather. Like it didn’t bother him at all.

_Why would it? He’s immortal. He has seen countless people living and dying. Countless great minds. Why should you be special?_

“Ah well,” Bill was saying with a shrug, drawing abstract patterns on his chest with a finger. “Best to get to work to make it worthwhile, huh?”

_Isn’t it already?_

The question almost made it to his lips, but he found himself unable to ask. Seeking answers was what he did best but he found that, for once, he’d rather stay with the doubt.

“I… maybe I should wake up,” Ford said instead, sitting up. “To… to work.”

Bill shrugged, lifting himself in the air. “Yeah, good idea - you fell a bit behind, huh?”

“I’ll do my best,” Ford blurted out, and Bill laughed.

“I’m sure you will, Fordsy,” he said, and snapped his fingers. Ford awoke with a start, eyes wide open in the dark, Bill’s words echoing in his mind.

_I’m sure you’ll try._

* * *

“No, no, NO!”

With a frustrated growl and a swipe of his arm, Ford threw all of his blueprints and calculations off the desk. It was all wrong, the design didn’t work, couldn’t work.

_I’m doing my best,_ he thought, then he shook his head, jaw clenched. No, he wasn’t. He couldn’t be. If that was truly his best, then it wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t worth it - _he_ wasn’t worth it. Bill had chosen him out of all the minds in his century, and he was failing him.

_I can do better. I must do better!_

Stanford Pines kicked aside the papers on the ground, grabbed another pen, and began filling a new notebook with calculations.

* * *

“Hey, Fordsy! Been hard at work, huh?”

Bill’s words caused Stanford to flinch, and that was something he had expected: he made a point of speaking as suddenly and close to his ear as he could, just to see how high up good old Fordsy would jump when startled. What Bill had _not_ expected was the guilty look Stanford gave him when he turned to him - one hell of a difference from the usual, almost embarrassing delight he usually showed when he saw him.

“Bill,” he said, and immediately turned away, back to the open notebook in front of him. “I… I was not supposed to fall asleep.”

“Hey, you’re human. When you gotta sleep, you gotta sleep,” Bill said, and let himself drop on Ford’s shoulder. “Take a break. How ‘bout a game of interdimensional chess or--”

“No,” Stanford cut him off, causing Bill to blink. He hadn’t even looked up at him, eyes fixed on his notes. “I… I need to finish this. I’ll do it now.”

“Sixer, you’re sleeping. Chances are that when you wake up you won’t remember half of it, _and_ you’ll be way too tired to do anything.”

That finally got Ford to pause, and he sighed. He let the pen fall on the desk and pressed a hand over his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“... Huh. Wasn’t speaking in riddles _my_ thing?” Bill asked, lifting himself from Ford’s shoulder and coming to hover before his face. He placed both hands on Ford’s own and made him pull it away from his face. “Sorry for what? Look, if it’s about that thing with your forbidden fantasies and whatnot, that was my bad, okay? I mean, I went and looked and probably shouldn’t have, but it was nothing some caustic soda in the eye couldn’t fix, so…”

“It isn’t that,” Ford said quickly, his skin blushing suddenly. “It’s that… I have fallen behind,” he added, causing Bill to blink. Fallen behind with what? There was no real schedule or anything like it, so what was IQ prattling about? Why was he acting like he had been berated when Bill had basically given him nothing but endless praise for a whole year?

“Uh?”

“I can do better than this,” Stanford said quickly, a hint of desperation in his voice. “I’m not going to waste the opportunity you gave me, I--”

“Whoa, whoa, okay, enough,” Bill cut him off, placing a hand on his mouth and causing the stream of words to immediately stop. “Don’t know what this is about, Sixer, but here’s the thing. You ain’t wasting anyone’s time, let alone mine,” he said, and reached to run his other hand through Ford’s hair. “You’ve got a brilliant mind in here. Well, sort of - we technically are in it right now, so I guess I should say you’ve got a great mind… out here?” he frowned, then shrugged. “Well, forget about it. You’ve got a brilliant mind, period,” he added, and let the hand in his hair trail down to his cheek. “My favorite. Just what I’ve been looking for.”

Watching the anguished expression on Fordsy’s face turned into the usual adoring one was both hilarious and kinda sad. Well, sad for him; to Bill, it was just hilarious. Such an exaggerated reaction, and for what? Just because he got his ego petted a bit.

_You got issues, Fordsy._

Bill had to hold back a laugh when Ford reached to cover the hand on his mouth with his own, and kissed his palm. “My Muse,” he murmured against it.

Well. Now that was better - just what he expected from his favorite puppet.

“Thaaat’s more like it,” Bill said, and blinked, causing the room around them to shift into Stanford’s mindscape, an armchair replacing the chair he’d been sitting into. He let himself drop on Ford’s lap, back against his stomach and hands folded behind his upper angle. “You know what would be great right now?” he said, closing his eye and crossing his legs. “A nice scratch, that’s what.”

He felt more than heard Sixer’s chuckle, and a moment later his fingers were at work, scratching lightly over the brick pattern on his lower half. Bill let out a sigh.

“A little to the left… aaaah, yes. Perfect. Those hands are seriously amazing, you know,” he said, willed a second set of arms to appear so that he could reach up for Ford’s face without having to move from his comfy position. He traced his throat, his cheeks and then his lips; once again, Ford took his hand and pressed it against his mouth, and Bill had to hold back a laugh.

_Got you good, sucker._

* * *

“Can’t say I’m impressed, to be honest.”

_I’m not impressed._

His father’s voice echoing somewhere in the back of his mind, Stanford swallowed back a sudden lump in his throat. He had been certain his calculations had been correct, his design feasible; he had been proud of the blueprints he had drawn. Had he truly gotten it all wrong?

_Of course I have. Bill wouldn’t be wrong on this._

Shame setting his face on fire, Stanford lowered his gaze to the floor. “I… what did I do wrong?”

“Just about everything, smart guy,” Bill said, underlining the last couple of words by making quote marks in the air before grabbing the blueprint. “I mean, sheesh. This doesn’t make any sense.”

Ford peered up at him, face still aflame, and blinked. “You… are you holding it upside down?”

“Wha-- ah!” Bill muttered, turning the blueprints, then shrugged. “Pfft. Makes even less sense this way, really,” he said, letting dropping it. Ford watched it fall on the non-existing ground, his heart dropping.

“Oh.”

“Look, I like you and all, but you can’t afford - heh, get it? AfFORD! - to slack off like this. We’ll never get anywhere if you don’t put your mind to it.”

_I am,_ Ford wanted to say, _I am, I am doing the best I can._

Except that he couldn’t, because it wasn’t good enough and he could not, would not accept that it was really the best he could do.

“I can do better,” he managed instead. “I will do better.”

“I hope so,” Bill said, hovering closer. “So get to work for real before my eyes start wandering to other geniuses, how ‘bout that?”

_You said I was the most brilliant mind you’d ever encountered,_ Ford thought, but looked down and nodded instead - too mortified to realize that something wasn’t quite right with his Muse’s last statement.

Because Bill Cipher had only _one_ eye.

* * *

There were few things - nah, scratch that, there was _nothing_ \- that Bill Cipher hated more than _not knowing_ what was going on. Something was wrong with Stanford, but he couldn’t tell what it was. Worse yet, he wouldn’t _tell_ him.

He was still working on the project for the portal, sure enough; working so hard, in fact, that he hardly slept. Hardly ate. Hardly meditated, and he used to do that daily to get in touch with him, to ask question, to tell him everything about his research. Now he was telling him nothing. Doing nothing to speak to him. For the lack of a better term, Stanford Pines was _avoiding_ him, and it was starting to get on his nerves

“I don’t get it,” Bill said, scowling the window to Ford’s dimension. It showed him working frantically, surrounded by scattered blueprints and piles of calculations. “It’s like my grasp on him is _slipping,_ and I have no idea why.”

Beside him, Pyronica tapped her chin in thought before brightening. “Oh! I know!”

“... You do?”

“When was last time you got him flowers?”

“Wha--”

“Or chocolate!” Teeth piped in somewhere behind him, through a mouthful of… whatever _that_ even was. “His kind likes chocolate right?”

“Or both!” Keyhole said. “Why not both? Bet that would work!”

“Or you could slaughter a few Wixegarts and bring him their spines!” Paci-Fire said, never to be outdone. “That’s how mama wooed my dad.”

Bill rolled his eye. “... _Seriously,_ guys? I don’t--”

“You can’t expect someone to stick with you if you don’t _cherish_ them, you know,” Hectorgon pointed out.

“... I _reaaaally_ don’t think we’re on the same page here,” Bill said, and crossed his arms. “This ain’t about how _smitten_ he is. He trusts me and he’s got to _keep_ trusting me, okay? I’ve got to figure out what’s going on. I can’t let him distance himself now - gotta keep him under my thumb. I need him.”

“Aww, that’s the sweetest thing I ever heard you--”

“The _portal,_ Ronnie!” Bill snapped, throwing up his arms. “I need him to build the _portal,_ and… why am I even discussing this with you guys? I know how it ends up! Every time!”

Pyronica gave him a toothy grin. “That’s what you get for leaving the window open, cutie.”

“It forgot it _one time_ and ugh, you just _had_ to watch, didn’t you?”

She shrugged. “Can’t blame us. It’s not every day a friend scores for the first time in a trillion years.”

“I’m still not sure I got how those _hoo-man_ bodies work,” Kryptos muttered. “I mean, that with with the--”

“ENOUGH!”

Bill’s shout was like thunder, shaking the entirely dimension to its core, and it was enough to make all of them shriek and scatter away. Or at least, almost all of them.

“So. How _are_ you gonna woo him again?” Pyronica asked, glancing at the window to Ford’s dimension, then she blinked. “Hey, look - I think he fell asleep!”

Bill turned to see that yeah, Ford seemed to be out cold, head resting on top of the desk. And snoring to boot. Exhaustion had caught up with him at long last; how very convenient for him that the sack of entrails he called a body was unable to function without sleep for too long. “Good. Guess it’s time to go ask him what the heck is going on.”

“Remember to get him flowers!”

“... Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t incinerate you where you stand.”

Pyronica grinned before blowing him a kiss. “You know you love me.”

“Don’t push it.”

* * *

“Are you pushing my patience on purpose, IQ?”

“No, I-- I’d never--” Ford stammered, only to fall silent when Bill lifted his hand.

“What is it, then? Have you caught a bad case of Dumb? You used to be smart, and now you can’t get a single thing right,” he said, crossing his arms. “You know, maybe your brother did you a favor when he broke your machine. You’d have made a fool out of yourself in that fancy-dancy college for brainiacs.”

“I…”

_I can do better._

_But I can’t. This was the best I could do, the very best._

“I’m trying,” was all he could manage to say. It felt as though something was squeezing his chest, something that hurt far worse than being rejected from his dream school. If even his Muse - _his Muse!_ \- was having second thoughts on whether he truly was the best mind of the century, if all he could do was not enough, what else could he say?

_You’re not good enough. You thought you were special and instead you’re just a freak._

“Trying is not enough,” Bill snapped. “How many years did you spend on books? And now you can’t use it for anything? Bet you even forgot what little you knew. I'd tell you a chemistry joke right now, but I know I wouldn't get a reaction. Hah! A _reaction!_ Get it? Because you probably wouldn’t know--”

_… Wait. Wait just a moment._

“Bill,” Ford said, very quietly, staring at his Muse with narrowed eyes. “That was one of the _worst_ puns I ever heard in my life.”

That caused Bill to recoil as though struck. “Whoa, hey! It was great! Just ‘cause you don’t get it--”

“The last of _several_ terrible puns,” Ford cut him off again, and took a step forward.

_Well, now that was smooth. Pun intended._

_You can’t afford - heh, get it? AfFORD! - to slack off like this._

“H-hey, how about we focus on your failure as--”

“Tell me one thing, Bill,” Ford cut him off. “What is the equation for calculating the frequency of light?”

“Oh. Er, that’s… that is…”

“That for volume flow rate? The balanced chemical equation for cellular respiration? The probability formula?”

“Uuuh…”

Stanford’s features twisted in what was something halfway between a snarl and a grin. He stopped right before ‘Bill’, and stared at him in the eye.

“You don’t know. You have no idea what I’m even talking about. Which can only mean one thing - you are not my Muse,” he added. “Bill Cipher would know the answers to all this in his sleep. But you cannot, because all _you’re_ good at is being a nuisance with the worst puns known to man.”

_Looks like you finally gave your brother a hand!_

“Am I right, Category 9? _Dream Hipster_?”

For a moment, ‘Bill’ stared at him in silence - then, suddenly, his eyeball fell off his socket, and his entire body melted like wax. Behind him, all around him, someone laughed.

“Hahahaha! Took you long enough! And you think you’re so smart!”

Ford turned to see the Dream Hipster was doubling over with laughter, horribly scarred face twisted in a parody of hilarity. Finally, he straightened himself and reached to dry the tears of mirth from his eyes - both of them, because apparently the eye under the eyepatch was perfectly fine; was that a fashion statement, like that horrid sweater and the forks taped to his hand?

“Why?” Ford snarled, taking a step towards him. “Weren’t you haunting the cabin? Why did you follow me here?”

The Dream Hipster scowled, trying to cross his arms and wincing when one of the forks taped to his fingers poked his opposite arm. In the end, he let them dangle by his sides and glared. “And you need ask? The nerve! You come into _my_ house--”

“It’s not even your--”

“... Insult _my_ amazing puns, even refuse to write them down, and I quote, _not to give me the satisfaction,_ and then you think you can just leave?”

For a moment, Ford could only stare; then what he had just heard finally began sinking in, and he clenched his fists. All of his work in the past weeks, all of the self-doubt and the the fear to disappoint Bill, all of the night he had spent awake working himself to the bone - it had been all because of one sick joke.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, there was relief - _Bill hadn’t been the one to say those things, he was never disappointed in him_ \- but it was immediately overshadowed by fury.

“You just pretended to be my Muse, tricked me for _weeks,_ because I didn’t like your puns?”

“You insulted what I’m best at! Seems only fair that I’d repay the - hey!” the Dream Hipster took a step back when Stanford threw himself at him, and lifted his hands. Ford felt something grabbing him, like an invisible force, and pulling him up in midair. He struggled to break free, but there was nothing for him to hold onto, nothing for him to _hit._ The being laughed again, watching his struggles. “Hahaha! Are you serious? Trying to _punch_ a Dream Hipster within a dream? Within a _nightmare_?”

As he spoke, the Mindscape all around them seemed to fall away like the backdrop of a stage, leaving only blackness behind.

_No,_ Ford thought. _No no no I can’t let him do this, not again, this is my mind, I can control it, I must control it--!_

But he couldn’t: his attempts at fighting back were useless, the being before him too powerful and entirely in control of the dream. The Dream Hipster laughed again and suddenly grew in size until he was towering over him, grinning down with rotten teeth.

_No no no this is not really none of this is real none of this--_

Rusty forks, easily the size of pitchforks, pressed against Ford’s chest, and panic flooded his senses, severing all further thought.

_BILL!_

“Now. We’ve come to a _fork_ in the road, if you get what I--”

_“WHAT IN THE TEN THOUSAND HELLS DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING??”_

Three things happened in quick succession: the Dream Hipster screamed, thrown back as though by some kind of invisible force; everything around Ford suddenly burst in blue, cold flames. And third, Stanford Pines _fell._

The knowledge that he couldn’t truly die in a dream did nothing to keep him from crying out; what did cut that cry off, however, as the sensation of something grabbing him in mid-air, breaking his fall.

“You okay, Sixer?”

Ford opened his eyes to what looked like a wall of gold, and raised his gaze to meet Bill’s eye. He was huge, enough for him to fit easily in his cupped hands, and it took a moment for Ford to catch his breath.

“I’m fine,” he managed. “I… how long…?”

“Long enough to get a good idea of what’s been going on.”

“I thought--”

“Hang on a minute. You’ll tell me what you thought when I’m done taking out the trash,” Bill said, and placed him down on the non-existent ground before he turned back to the Dream Hipster, who was just getting back on his feet. “All right, Scarface. Care to give me _one reason_ why I SHOULDN’T DISSEMBLE EVERY SINGLE MOLECULE OF YOUR BODY WITH MY BARE HANDS?”

As Bill’s voice changed from the furious shriek of lighting to the rumble of an earthquake, Ford watched with his mouth hanging open as his huge form shifted and changed into a pyramidal nightmare of deep red and black tongues poking out of huge, sharp fangs. His eye - _eyes,_ he had four now, one on each side - were pools of blackness with a pupil of molten gold in the middle, and conveyed only one thing: pure, unbridled _fury._

The Dream Hipster had the good grace to look scared, but it didn’t last. He rose to his full height, about the same as Bill, and scoffed. “Hah! Mad that I took a jab at your toy? Who says you’re the only one who gets--”

Looking back a long time later, knowing better than he did then - knowing the monster Bill Cipher had truly been all along - Ford would assume that perhaps the Dream Hipster had hoped to distract Bill: he liked to toy with those in his power, like a sadistic cat playing with a mouse before devouring it. Perhaps he had hoped to use that at his advantage.

But he never got to, because Bill did not waste time. He did not toy with him. He didn’t even retort. He moved in for the kill, moving all the world like a spider and, much like an insect stuck in the web, the Dream Hipster could do nothing before he was on him. Except scream. _A lot._

It was terrifying and amazing at the same time, and Ford couldn’t tear his eyes from the scene.

_CRUNCH._

The sickening noise was loud as a gunshot and clearly audible through the screams. Rusty forks the size of pitchforks clawed at Bill’s surface, sending purplish blood to fall among the blue flames all around, pooling into puddles that bubbled like acid, but Bill showed no sign of even feeling it. He bit down harder, the Dream Hipster entirely hidden by his sheer mass, and the blue flames closed down on them, on _all_ of them, cold and hot at the same time. Ford let out a cry, reaching up to cover his eyes against the brightness, and before it all turned black again he heard one last thing, loud as thunder.

_“NOBODY GETS TO TAKE WHAT’S MINE!”_

* * *

_Mine._

_My blessed Muse._

_Mine._

_My favorite._

_Mine._

* * *

“Hey, Fordsy. Sorry I had to interrupt. So, what _was_ it that you thought?”

It was kind of funny how cautiously Fordsy opened his eyes, like he feared to find himself into another nightmare, but Bill managed not to laugh at him. He just watched while Stanford blinked, and visibly relaxed when he realized he was back in his mindscape, as normal, sitting on an armchair floating in the infinity of space. Finally, he turned to Bill.

“... Is it really you?” he asked, narrowing his eyes, and Bill shrugged.

“The one and only! The dream loser won’t bother you anymore. Woulda given you his heart as a token or something, but I ate it, so nope.”

“Have you… killed him?”

Bill frowned. “I wish, but nah. Can’t quite _kill_ someone like him. Not in here, anyway. But believe me, he won’t be back in your mind unless he’s absolutely dying to _fork up_ trouble and… hahahaha, just kidding! Just kidding! That pun was on purpose, honest,” Bill laughed when Ford tensed again, eyes widening. “My jokes are way better that those. I’m surprised you couldn’t tell the difference for… how long was that? Weeks?”

Ford nodded, or perhaps he hung his head in shame. It was hard to tell. “I… I should have known.”

“Yep. Definitely should have,” Bill agreed, not quite about to assuage his guilt. Honestly, the fact he couldn’t tell the difference between him and that _joke_ of a demon was kind of insulting. “I’ve told you a million times that you’re the best mind I’ve come across. Did you think I was just wrong about that?”

“I… no! Of course not, I… nothing of what I did seemed to be enough, so I thought…” Ford’s voice faded, and he looked away. Well, it looked like he could relent, after all: good old Six Fingers not only had learned his lesson, but was still firmly wrapped around his little finger. Not that Bill had really thought that could change so easily, but it was still good to know. He still needed him for the portal, after all.

Plus, he didn’t like it when someone tried to steal his toys. Maybe he was just a teensy little bit territorial.

_So sue me._

“Yep, and that shoulda been a dead giveaway that it wasn’t me,” Bill said, and lowered himself on Ford so that he’d be standing on his knees, a hand on either side of his face and eye fixed in his. Time to give the leash a small tug, just to be sure Ford still knew _who_ he should listen to. “You won’t _ever_ hear that crap from me, Fordsy. You’re _it._ No doubt whatsoever about it. Your future’s bright - just stick with me, and you’ll change the world.”

Ford stared at him for a moment, then he leaned forward to press his lips against Bill’s surface, just below his eye. “My Muse,” he murmured against him, and actually, that did feel awfully nice. Bill chuckled and reached to tug at his hair, turning his eye into a mouth in a blink.

“Fordsy?”

“Mmh?”

“My mouth’s up here.”

To his credit, Stanford was _very_ quick to act on the invitation.

* * *

Through the open window to Stanford Pines’ mind, several eyes watched the events unfolding. Several eyebrows rose up in mild confusion. Several heads tilted on one side.

“... Nope,” Kryptos finally spoke on everyone’s behalf. “Still not gettin’ how _hoo-man_ bodies can do that.”


End file.
